Wicketkeeper Dhoni’s home attacked after Indian loss

Sri Lankan Police forming a human chain in parliament to protect the Speaker and enable a vote.

RANCHI, India, March 19, 2007 (AFP) – Furious Indian cricket fans stormed the home of national wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni Sunday to protest a five-wicket rout by Bangladesh in their opening World Cup match, police said.

They tore down walls and pillars of Dhoni’s house, which is under construction, in the eastern city of Ranchi to protest the 26-year-old player’s performance in India’s shocking defeat in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

India were all out for 191, with Dhoni returning to the pavilion without scoring in India’s match Saturday, a shock to the cricket-mad country of 1.1 billion people.

“Dhoni die, die,” the protesters chanted, burning effigies of the long-maned player, who has scored 1,958 runs in 68 one-day international matches and is counted among India’s most aggressive batsmen, police said.

Dhoni’s hometown, Ranchi, is the capital of Jharkhand state, which last year gifted Dhoni a 360 square metre (4,000 square feet) plot of land to build a house on.

They screamed anti-Dhoni slogans and demanded the withdrawal of the prime residential plot worth five million rupees (110,000 dollars), police and witnesses said.

“It seems Dhoni is banking more on modelling than wicketkeeping and ba

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